Photo/Illutration The “Okuriko Pet,” a storage refrigerator for dead pets produced by Tatumi Industrial Co., in Kawasaki on Oct. 4 (Miho Kato)

KAWASAKI--A new product planned by a refrigerator manufacturer here elicited gasps of horror from within the company.

“We’re making refrigerators to store food, and you’re putting dead bodies in them?” one employee asked Hiroyuki Iwane, president of Tatumi Industrial Co.

The new refrigerator, called “Okuriko Pet,” acts as a mortuary chamber for dead pets. Essentially, it preserves their bodies until it’s time for cremation or other burial services.

It went on sale in August.

The large, white refrigerator has various sized doors, each of which is decorated with a photo of an animal, including a dog, cat, hamster and parakeet. Inside each door is a rack with a basket for the corpses.

The number of racks and doors, as well as their sizes, can be changed to match different kinds of pets, the 51-year-old president said.

Tatumi Industrial’s flagship products are drink refrigerators at stores. It holds an 80-percent market share in food refrigerators for convenience stores in the Tokyo metropolitan area.

The company entered the “end-of-life” industry during the COVID-19 pandemic.

WAITING LISTS FOR CREMATION

Tatumi Industrial was founded in Kawasaki’s Saiwai Ward in 1962 as a heat insulating panel manufacturer. It later produced, developed and installed prefabricated professional-use refrigerators and freezers.

The appliances can be customized to fit the size and shape of the installation space.

In autumn 2021, when a state of emergency was in place for COVID-19, the company received no orders for refrigerators from convenience stores.

Instead, Tatumi Industrial was inundated with inquiries from temples and funeral companies.

Deaths were surging in the pandemic, and the bodies of coronavirus patients were being brought directly to crematoriums from hospitals.

This dire situation created long waiting lists for cremation.

The company’s refrigerators required less effort than using dry ice to keep the bodies cool. The products also catered to the growing number of families opting to hold small-scale funeral services.

Tatumi Industrial set up a booth at a trade fair for the end-of-life industry to promote its storage refrigerator for bodies in spring 2022.

The company then received many inquiries about refrigeration units for dead pets.

There are strict customs and rules for human cremations and funerals, but there are no such guidelines for pets, the company said.

In many cases, the bodies of pets are kept at home for a brief period. Some are cremated at temples or in mobile crematoriums, but oftentimes family members of the pet owners live far away and cannot arrive in time for such services.

PETS ALSO AGING

According to a Japan Pet Food Association survey in 2023, 9.069 million cats were kept as pets in Japan while the figure for dogs was 6.844 million.

Pets are aging alongside their owners, and demand has grown for animal funerals and morgues.

Fifty-six percent of pet canines and 46.5 percent of felines are aged 7 or older and are considered elderly.

Tatumi Industrial unveiled the Okuriko Pet refrigerator at a trade fair in Tokyo in August. Its starting sales price is 1.3 million yen ($8,500), excluding tax.

The company plans to sell the product to funeral companies, temples, animal hospitals and other institutions around the country.

“Pets are our precious family members. We want to create time for owners to look at their faces, touch them and prepare for the farewell,” Iwane said.

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